Minutes of the 2nd Construction Hand-arm Vibration Working Group Meeting, Aston Villa FC, Birmingham, 31/03/06

Attendees: Phil Burgess (HSE), Tony Wheel (Construction Confederation), Peter Houldridge (Complete Hire Services), Kevin Minton (HAE), Holger Lochmann (Stihl), Hans Fairley (Stihl, AEA), Greg Bordiak (BCAS), Peter Alford (JCB), Leo Beirne (HSE), Andrew Bowden (Makita (UK), EPTA), Ulrich Betten (Hilti), David Edwards (OPERC), Rob Caddy (Belle Group),David Smeatham (HSE), Mark Owen (Shepherds Construction, MCG).

The meeting was based around an agenda circulated prior to the meeting.

Welcome

Meeting opened and attendees were welcomed. Members of the group introduced themselves and stated whom they were representing. The agenda was presented to the group.

Previous meeting minutes

The group accepted these.

Matters arising

[Phil do you want to put anything here?]

Trust

Representation

David Smeatham presented the terms of reference discussed at the previous meeting and the flowchart showing the location of responsibilities on manufacturers and suppliers (from the Machinery Directive) and on en-users (Physical Agents (Vibration) Directive). The supply chain can be split into two sections for the purposes of this group (a) vibration data (b) communication of vibration risk information. A description of the standard EN 20643 was also given with a explanation of the 75th percentile vibration. The slides from this presentation are produced in Annex A.

Feedback from manufacturers’ meeting

Peter Alford reported the discussions of the Manufacturers’ Group back to the working group. There was a very wide representation of manufacturers at the manufacturers meeting. They recognised that they needed to develop trust with the end-users and that there was a need for consistent vibration information that is representative of in-use (i.e. 75th percentile). The development of improved standards was seen as the solution and there was a need to share data and experiences to aid the development of the standards. It was decided that the manufacturers needed to review what tests they were doing and determine whether the data was representative of the 75% percentile vibration. However, there was a need to focus their effort towards those tools/processes common in the construction industry. To help them do this they had asked the suppliers and end-users to identify which tools and applications were most common in the industry.

HAE response

Kevin Minton presented the outcome of a meeting with hirers. A summary of this meeting is presented in Annex B. This was discussed and it was decided that the main issue was getting data that was representative of the in-use vibration.

MCG response

In response to the request from manufactures Mark Owen had asked Speedy hire to identify the top 10 processes in terms of hired units. These are presented in Annex C.

Discussion regarding target tools/processes

Following a general discussion it was decided by the group that:

• The target for all vibration data going into the database should be that it represents the 75th percentile of typical use of the tool/process
• The group needed to know;
  • What are the high use processes
  • What are the high vibration processes
  • Where current standards do not represent 75th percentile of vibration.
• The tests used to determine the 75th percentile were the source of credibility. That is to say that a common test is needed to aid consistency and allow verification.
• During these discussions the indication was made that:
  • The new electrical standards had been developed to provide data representing the 75th percentile
  • The pneumatic tools standards currently under development were aimed at providing the 75th percentile
  • The tests for compression tools was aimed at providing 75th percentile
  • The portable petrol powered tools currently provided data representing greater than the 75th percentile.

The outcome of these discussions was that the end-user/hirer group would meet to determine the high sales/hire risk processes buy looking at sales information, local knowledge and safety information sheet distribution. This would be passed to the manufacturer’s group to determine whether the proposed tests for these tools/processes would achieve the 75th percentile and if not work towards an improved test.

Verification

David Smeatham presented a potential method of verifying data in the database by comparing the vibration of similar tools and checking this against the known range of in-use vibration from these tools. There is a need to use vibration information from a number of sources to determine this range. The slides used for this are presented in Annex A.

Traffic light system review and training package revision

The group discussed the current traffic light system and it was generally thought the system was good at communicating a simple message. There may be a need to change the boundaries as the vibration in the new database will be higher. The group considered red tools also being provided with points (i.e. points per hour) and having intermediate bands potentially indicating where the exposure action values was exceeded. The group also considered producing passports for tools with noise, vibration weight etc stamped/attached to the tool.

Setting dates of the next meetings

[Phil – do you have the details of these]

• Supply/End-users meeting
• Manufacturers’ meeting
• Working group meeting

AOB

A warm thanks was extended to the HAE for hosting the meeting.